


Thick As Thieves

by prettysailorsoldier



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Case Fic, M/M, Teenlock, Unilock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-12
Updated: 2016-04-12
Packaged: 2018-06-01 22:21:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6538777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prettysailorsoldier/pseuds/prettysailorsoldier
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The last thing John Watson expects when he answers his forgetful roommate's phone is being sent to bail a stranger out of jail, but, when Sherlock Holmes is on the other end of the line, all bets are off. Though you can always count on murder being in the cards.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thick As Thieves

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a short bit of cheesy fluffy nonsense, and then I blinked and it was 13k and people were being shot at.
> 
> THANKS, OBAMA!!!!

_“You are the Dancing Queen, young and sweet, only seventeen…”_

John’s head shot up from his immunology textbook so fast, he nearly lost his glasses, his fingers catching the edge of the frames as he whipped his face around.

_“Dancing Queen, feel the beat from the tambourine, oh yeah!”_

A light on the dresser across the room caught his eye, and John sighed, shaking his head as he got up to answer his forgetful roommate’s phone, the ringtone he’d jokingly changed several days ago coming back to bite him as the tune drilled into his head to make a home for at least the next 48 hours.

_“You can dance, you can jive, having the time of your-”_

“Hello?” John answered, glancing at the unfamiliar number on the screen as he leaned his hip against Mike’s dresser. For a long moment, there was only silence, John just about to open his mouth and ask again when a sharp voice cut off the thought.

“Who is this?” a deep voice demanded. “How did you get Mike’s phone?”

John’s eyes narrowed, not even ten words into his conversation with the mystery caller and already decided he didn’t like him. “He forgot it when he went out earlier,” he answered. “I’m his roommate, John.”

“Right,” the man muttered after a moment, less antagonistic now. “Yes, Mike’s mentioned you once or twice. The hooker, right?”

John’s eyes shot wide, his mouth dropping open as he barely restrained himself from giving the friend-of-a-friend a profane piece of his mind. “I- On the rugby team!” he spluttered. “I play hooker on the rugby team!”

“Oh,” the caller replied, tone growing bored. “Well, now you’re much less interesting.”

John’s jaw clicked. “Is there a message you want me to take, or-”

“No, no, it’ll be too late then,” the man irritably interjected. “Did he say when he’d be back?”

“No,” John answered, shaking his head as he turned to lean his back against the drawers. “Probably not for a while though. He only left about an hour ago.”

The man huffed in clear displeasure, and then fell silent, John beginning to consider he’d been hung up on when the voice snapped across the line again, startling his straining ears. “Well, you’re not doing anything right now, I suppose,” he muttered as John blinked incredulously down at the dresser. “Must be rather bored too if you’re answering your roommate’s phone on a Saturday night.”

“I was studying,” John snarled, the mobile creaking in his grip as the stranger snorted, “and I thought the call might be important.”

“Well, it is.”

“I wouldn’t know,” John rebutted, shrugging for no one. “You haven’t told me why you called.”

“There’s a debit card in the top drawer of Mike’s dresser, probably in the back right-hand corner,” the man said, and John pulled away from the furniture, frowning at the top handle.

“...Okay.”

“Get it out.”

“What?”

“Get the card out.”

“I’m not digging around in Mike’s stuff!”

“It’s t-shirts and socks, and you’ll hardly be digging; I told you where to look.”

“How do you know what Mike has in his drawers!?”

“From the illustrious affair we had last semester--will you just get the damn card!?”

John numbly followed the instruction, his mind spinning around the stranger’s words as he fished out the thin black Visa. “Okay, I-I got it.”

“Well done,” the man deadpanned, jarring John out of his trance, but continued speaking before he could retort. “Now, get in a cab and come down to Scotland Yard.”

“What!?” John blustered. “Scotland Yard? Why would I-”

“Holmes!”

The voice was muffled, and clearly female, John pressing his ear tight to the receiver so as not to miss her words.

“What are you still doing out here?” the woman snapped, and John frowned at the ire in her voice, the back of his neck instantly prickling with dislike. “I said one phone call, not one telethon!”

“It’s been three minutes,” the caller spat back, and, suddenly, John realized he wasn’t quite a stranger after all.

“Wait, Holmes?” he interjected, the man stalling halfway through another snarling comment. “As in Sherlock Holmes?”

“Yes,” apparently-Sherlock replied, tone speculative. “How do you-”

“Mike’s mentioned you a few times,” John answered. “Said he’s always having to-” He stopped, his mind slotting the missing pieces into place. “You’re in jail, aren’t you?” he asked flatly, the man’s silence confirmation enough. “And you want me to bail you out.”

“That would be preferable,” Sherlock admitted, a touch of chagrin sneaking past the surly demeanor, and, though John was 97% sure he was being manipulated, there was nothing he could do to keep it from working.

He sighed heavily, swearing he could hear Sherlock smirking on the other end of the line. “Scotland Yard?”

“Scotland Yard,” Sherlock confirmed, cramming an impressive amount of smugness into three syllables, and John rolled his eyes, turning away to drop his glasses on the desk and grab the rugby jacket off the back of his chair.

“I’ll be there in 30.”

“27,” Sherlock countered, and John laughed, shaking his head at the no-longer-a-stranger, now-just-strange man.

“This isn’t a negotiation!”

“I wasn’t attempting one,” Sherlock replied. “I was simply saying that it’s only a fifteen minute trip.”

“Did you learn that during your illustrious affair too?” John quipped as he thumped down the steps of his flat building.

“When I frequently made trips between your dorm and Scotland Yard?”

“Hey, I don’t know what you’re into,” he muttered, and Sherlock laughed, a sound quickly bitten off as the woman’s voice barked something unintelligible.

“Don’t you have protecting and serving to do?” Sherlock snapped, John listening intently as he stepped out into the brisk air, his breath smoking from his mouth as he lifted a hand at an approaching cab.

“I am,” the woman replied, presumably closer now, her voice growing louder. “I’m locking you up. That’s medal-worthy protecting and serving.”

“Ah, yes, the people of London will rest easy tonight knowing there’s one less teenager on the streets.”

“A burglarizing teenager.”

“I told you, he stole my wallet.”

“A grown man stole a 17-year-old’s wallet?”

“18, and I can’t be expected to explain the depravity of mankind.”

“Burglary is still burglary.”

“Actually, Sergeant Donovan, if the defendant enters the building with the purpose of regaining property they believe they have a legal right to, there is no intent to commit theft, therefore nullifying-”

“Alright, alright, save it for the judge.”

“It’s almost charming you still believe it will get that far.”

“Get off the damn phone!”

Sherlock sighed heavily, as if bored by the proceedings, and John chuckled as he leaned forward to give the cabbie the address, enjoying the man’s startled expression in the rearview mirror.

“You’re on your way, then?” Sherlock presumed, voice adopting a much softer tenor, and John smiled in the dark of the cab, nodding against his mobile.

“Yeah,” he confirmed, “should be there in about...23 minutes.”

Sherlock huffed a laugh. “I’ll be the one in the handcuffs,” he replied, prompting John into a laugh that, if going to Scotland Yard hadn’t done it, definitely made the cabbie think he was delusional. “Oh, and John?”

“Hmm?”

“I came over to give Mike the debit card,” he said softly, Sergeant Donovan no doubt still circling. “He put it in the drawer while I was there.”

“So, no illustrious affair?” John asked, Sherlock’s answering laugh bouncing loud and bright down the line.

“Sorry to disappoint.”

“I’ll recover,” John sighed as Sherlock chuckled.

“I-”

“Alright, that’s enough!” the female sergeant broke in, followed by a cacophony of rustling and indistinct shouts before the line went dead, a steady hum buzzing in John’s ear as he frowned out at the passing neon signs.

Pulling the mobile away, he ended the call, lowering the device to his lap as he watched the streetlights reflect in shifting streaks across the shiny black screen.

So. That was Sherlock Holmes.

He rattled his head, stowing the mobile in the pocket of his rugby jacket as he settled back into the seat, but found he couldn’t quite get comfortable, a certain restlessness plucking at his muscles. Biting his lip, he glanced at the clock, knee bouncing as his fingers tapped against the smooth leather.

“How much longer, do you think?” John asked, the cabbie shooting a curious glance into the mirror.

“About twenty minutes,” he replied, and John nodded, slouching back against the cushion.

“Right,” he muttered, but his fingers never stopped their strumming, mind wandering away as it tried to construct a face from a laugh.

18 and a half minutes later, the cab squeaked to a stop in front of Scotland Yard, and John clamored out, eyes darting between the lit windows of the building’s shadowed facade. “Cheers,” he bade, passing a handful of notes through the window, and then jogged toward the warm sanctuary of the main doors, catching a glimpse of the cabbie shaking his head as he pulled away behind him.

He slowed as he neared the entrance, coming into a police station at a run hardly seeming like the smartest idea, and passed through the double doors to the large foyer beyond, searching around the room for a face he didn’t know.

“John?”

He spun on his heels toward the voice, but the man approaching was at least two decades beyond 18, a glittering badge visible on his belt as his jacket shifted with his strides, and John’s mind was halfway through every bad thing he’d ever done when the man smiled, stopping in front of him and extending a hand.

“Detective Inspector Lestrade,” he said, his welcoming demeanor somewhat at odds with the mouthful of a title.

“John Watson,” John replied, taking the man’s hand in a firm shake.

“Watson, is it?” the inspector remarked, the hair on John’s neck rising with the acute awareness that his background was about to be checked. “Well, that’s not so hard. Wonder Sherlock couldn’t remember it.”

“I-I don’t think he ever knew it,” John revealed, and the man tilted his head, frowning curiously. “I- Well, we’ve never actually met,” he muttered, only realizing how suspect this all was now that he was saying it to a police officer. “He called my roommate Mike’s phone, and Mike had left it behind, so-”

“Mike Stamford?” Inspector Lestrade interrupted, breaking into a grin as John nodded. “I know Mike! Good guy,” he mused, and John inclined his head in agreement. “You’re his roommate, ya said?”

“Yeah,” John confirmed, hands slipping into the pockets of his jacket, which drew the inspector’s attention to the bright red garment, his eyes widening as he pointed to the Barts emblem on the breast.

“Oh, John! You’re the rugby captain, right? Don’t know why I didn’t put it together sooner, Mike talks about you all the time.”

“He-He does?” John questioned, mentally scanning the past year for events he hoped Mike hadn’t mentioned, but Lestrade didn’t seem to know about the time they’d put a particularly unpleasant professor’s BMW up on blocks, his smile unwavering as he nodded.

“Mostly rugby stuff. A lot of complaining about the early-morning jogs,” he quipped, chuckling as John rolled his eyes.

“Well, if he’d kept up his conditioning over the summer,” he muttered bitterly, and Lestrade laughed.

“Hard to argue with that! Well, Donovan should be bringing him out in a few minutes,” he remarked, glancing over his shoulder to a large metal door across the room. “We can fill out all the paperwork over here,” he added, beckoning John to follow him, and John obliged, hovering tight to the inspector’s shoulder as they made their way to an empty desk. “So, you’ve really never met him?” Lestrade asked as he pulled open one of the drawers, riffling through several folders before plucking out a thin stapled packet. “Sherlock, I mean.”

John took the passed pages, shaking his head. “No,” he replied, wriggling his wallet out and placing it on the desk. “Mike’s mentioned him a few times, but that’s it.”

Lestrade’s brow furrowed, a puzzled sort of smile curling at his lips. “You came halfway across town on a Saturday night to post bail for a kid you’ve never met?”

John paused halfway through reading the first form, blinking over the lip of the black and white page. “Well, I- Mike knows him,” he murmured, hoping the heat in his cheeks wasn’t visible, “and-and he gave me a debit card.” He placed the forms on the desk, freeing his hands to pull the black plastic from his wallet. “Or told me where to find it, anyway,” he added with a shrug, watching the silver numbers glint in the light as he twisted the card between his fingers, but his eyes lifted when Lestrade broke into a loud laugh.

“Ah, the good old get out of jail free card,” he said, shaking his head as he took the plastic from John’s hand. “You know, sometimes I wonder if Mycroft even knows he has this.”

John frowned, tilting his head, and Lestrade smiled, placing the card on the desk and spinning the form around to copy the information.

“Mycroft is Sherlock’s older brother,” he explained, pen scratching out numbers as he glanced between the card and the appropriate field. “The card’s in Sherlock’s name, but it takes from Mycroft’s account.”

“But he must know Sherlock has it,” John contested. “How would he not notice that much money disappearing?”

“By having a lot more money,” Lestrade supplied, John tipping his head at the point as Lestrade passed back the card. “I’ll need your driver’s license too,” he said, and John nodded, placing the thin plastic on the table for the man to copy from.

“So, they- They’re wealthy, then?” John presumed, struggling to keep his tone nonchalant in spite of his burning curiosity. “The family?”

“Not the whole family,” the inspector explained. “Not especially so, anyway. I think the parents have quite a chunk stored up, but they live pretty modest. Mycroft, on the other hand,” he added with a pointed quirk of his brows. “He has a manor on the outskirts of London—chauffeur, furniture you can’t sit on, the works,” he mocked, smiling as John chuckled. “But he’s made all his own money, so I suppose he can spend it however he likes. He works for the government.”

John waited for more information, frowning at the top of the inspector’s head as the man continued to scratch away at the paperwork, flipping over a page with a flutter. “As what?” he finally asked, and Lestrade glanced up, brow furrowed. “What does he do for the government?” John clarified, and Lestrade chuckled, shaking his head as he scrawled his signature on a line at the bottom, and then turned the form around, holding the pen out and gesturing for John to do the same.

“I have no idea,” he said, pulling the paperwork out from under John’s pen as soon as he finished the last curve of the ‘n’, “but I get the feeling I’m better off not knowing.”

John huffed a small laugh, but Lestrade did not, and, after a moment, the smile slipped from his face. “Wait, really?” he muttered, wondering exactly what sort of people he’d gotten himself mixed up with—or rather, Mike had—but, before Lestrade could reply, the metal door swung open, setting loose an unmistakable voice.

“-in clear violation of PACE Code C, paragraph 3.4, sub-paragraph a.”

“He asked if the cuffs were too tight.”

“Which was inviting comment!” Sherlock Holmes snapped, appearing from behind the door with a glower on his face and a young female officer tight to his back. “Honestly, do you let just anyone wander in off the street and into a uniform, or do you handpick them from traveling carnivals?”

The woman glared at the back of his head, pushing him forward with a jab between the shoulder blades. “There’s only one circus freak here,” Sergeant Donovan spat, John finally placing the gruff tone, but Sherlock appeared unfazed.

“Oh, come now, Sally,” he chided, turning back over his shoulder. “You know Anderson’s on his third prescription deodorant trying to- Oof!”

The sergeant gave him a firm shove, Sherlock stumbling a bit as he emerged from behind the desks, and John got his first proper look at the curious stranger who’d called him in the middle of the night.

The first thing John noticed were his eyes, twin grey orbs glinting like sharpened points of daggers as he glared at the woman, and then the untidy mop of dark hair that framed them, curls begging for a trim as they spiraled over his forehead. Second came the fairly jarring realization that the man was wearing a school uniform, the hem of his black trousers splattered with the same dried mud that marred his shoes, and his grey jumper was bunched up to his elbows, white dress shirt protruding at the collar and cuffs.

Though John had heard Sherlock say he was 18 on the phone, something within the man’s cadence had led him to imagine an early admission into some top-tier university, or a child prodigy already teaching graduate physics at Oxford. The worrisomely thin student before him, skin stretched pale over too-long limbs, was somewhat at odds with that image, but, then again, no one ever believed John was 19 either—at least, not without a healthy helping of scruff.

“What?” Sherlock drawled, shrugging his shoulders, the small movement drawing John’s attention to the flashing silver cuffs around his wrists. “Was it something I said?”

“Sally,” Lestrade cautioned, intervening just as the woman was drawing in a breath to reply, and Sherlock turned toward the voice, a smirk landing on the inspector before his gaze dropped to John.

When John was in secondary school, he’d had a teacher, Mrs. Powles, who could take one look at you and instantly dismiss whatever brilliant story you’d spent the whole day concocting for why your homework wasn’t done, you’d come bursting in late two minutes after the bell, or you wanted to go to the nurse’s office.

Somehow, this was worse, though it could only have lasted a few seconds compared to Mrs. Powles’ four years, Sherlock’s expression shifting between surprise, suspicion, and curiosity as his eyes pierced through him in a way that made John slightly more open-minded toward psychics.

“Who’s he?” Sergeant Donovan snipped, and John blinked, the spell broken as he turned to her, swallowing through a throat suddenly gone dry.

“He’s John,” he replied, flicking his wrist in a brusque wave. “John Watson. I’m Mike’s roommate.”

“The one with the glasses?” she asked, miming circular frames in front of her chest, and John’s jaw tightened, his fingers twitching at his side.

“Yes,” he answered tartly, “the one with the glasses. And the name that’s four letters.”

The woman blinked at him, more surprised than offended, at least until Sherlock started to cough, dropping his face and lifting his cuffed hands to conceal a smirk, at which point her eyes narrowed sharply.

“John, was it?” she snapped, and he nodded. “What are you doing here, John?”

“I-”

“Coming to this one’s rescue,” Lestrade broke in, waving a hand at Sherlock, who rolled his eyes, a gesture of annoyance somewhat tempered by the restraints still tethering his wrists. “John just bailed him out.”

Sally snorted, a mocking smile stretching across her lips as she glanced between the two young men. “You sure you wanna be responsible for this?” she scoffed, flipping an errant hand at the boy. “And how do you know one another anyway?” she continued with a frown. “I thought Mike was the only one who could stand him.”

John’s jaw clicked. “Oh, we go way back,” he lied, but Sherlock nodded immediately. “Met in…year three? Four?”

“Three,” Sherlock confirmed, eyes bright with the smile twitching at the corners of his mouth. “I remember because you were still letting your mother cut your hair back then.”

“Ah, yes, the twilight years of the bowl cut,” John sighed, nodding in feigned recollection, Lestrade silently shaking his head at his side. “End of an era, really. That was the same year you were in the Christmas play, wasn’t it?”

Almost imperceptibly, Sherlock bit hard at the corner of his lip. “I believe it was.”

John grinned, contemplating his next move as something in Sherlock’s gaze begged him to be kind. “You were by far the best angel up there,” he said, and that appeared acceptable, Sherlock shrugging in acceptance of the praise.

“Well, it was hardly difficult to be the best in that group.”

“True. You know Kevin is in dental school now?”

“Kevin Woodard? The one who ate his oranges with the peels still on?”

“The very same.”

“Always knew he was going places,” Sherlock mused, and John laughed, the sarcasm amusing in spite of the fictionalized context.

Still chuckling, he then turned to Sergeant Donovan, the movement timed with Sherlock’s identical one, as if they’d both been waiting on some unheard cue.

The woman blinked between them, her face furrowed with a perplexed frown. “How-” she stammered, “How do you eat an orange with the peel still on?”

“Like an apple,” John replied, the syllables synchronized with Sherlock’s deeper voice, and their eyes found one another a moment before snapping back to Sally, John aware in some inexplicable way that Sherlock was also barely containing a laugh.

“Alright,” Lestrade said, casting John a secret smile as he passed, “let’s get you two out of here. No sense losing an entire Saturday night.”

“Couldn’t agree more, Inspector,” Sherlock chirped, lifting his hands beneath his chin as he jangled the silver bracelets, and Lestrade shook his head, motioning to Sally to remove them.

The woman rolled her eyes, but complied, crossing in front of Sherlock as she pulled the small silver key from her pocket.

Sherlock hissed dramatically as the sergeant pulled the cuffs free, rubbing over his naked wrists with a pained grimace. “Well, as always,” he said, eyes bright with mockery, “it was lovely to see you both. Let’s not do this again sometime!”

“That’s hardly up to us, Sherlock,” Lestrade chastised, but Sherlock only rolled his eyes.

“I beg to differ, Inspector,” he pronounced, tugging his jumper down before rattling his arms into the sleeves of the long coat Sergeant Donovan had thrust at him. “If you start doing your job, I’ll be able to stop cleaning up your mess.” He smirked, the corner of his lopsided lips drawing up like the point of a knife. “Gentlemen,” he bade, nodding at Lestrade and the sprinkling of officers still loitering around the foyer. “Donovan,” he added flatly, and was sweeping away before she could reply, turning his collar up to dance against his jaw as the bulk of the coat billowed out behind him.

John turned to the two officers, smiling between them as he began backing after Sherlock, nothing else for him to do but follow. “It was, er, nice meeting you,” he muttered, Lestrade beaming while Donovan sneered.

“You too,” the man replied. “Though the circumstances could’ve been better.”

John chuckled. “Maybe next time,” he offered, and Lestrade nodded, John taking it for a farewell as he turned to hurry after Sherlock.

He caught up with him just outside the doors, the man’s shoulders drawn up and hands in his pockets as if he were cold, yet the coat remained unbuttoned, shifting around Sherlock’s legs in the light breeze, and John wondered if warmth was being sacrificed for dramatic effect. For all it appeared the man had been waiting for him, his weight shifting between his feet, he didn’t seem to have thought of anything to say, and it was a long moment before he spoke, bravado fading away as his eyes flicked down to John’s in shy spurts.

“I, er- I suppose- In spite of our primary school acquaintance,” he muttered, mouth curling in a small smile as John laughed, “we haven’t been properly introduced.” He pulled a hand from his pocket, pale thin fingers pointing out toward John’s chest. “Sherlock Holmes,” he said, and John took the frigid hand with a chuckle.

“John Watson,” he replied, feeling his warmth bleeding out across Sherlock palm, and then they broke apart, both slipping their hands into their pockets as they rocked back on their heels. John huffed a laugh at the synchronized mannerism, Sherlock ducking a smile to the ground, and then the younger man lifted his face again, tilting his head with a frown.

“Did you really know someone who ate their oranges with the peels on?”

John blinked at him a moment, and then laughed, nodding down at his shoes. “I did, actually,” he chuckled, “but his name was Seth, not Kevin. You?”

“Alan Gleason,” Sherlock said, a far-off look in his eyes as he nodded, face turned out toward the street. “He was in the year above me. I wonder if he still does that at uni.”

“I doubt anyone would notice,” John muttered, and Sherlock cast him a sidelong smile. “I’ve seen so many barmy things around campus, I don’t think it’s even possible to surprise me anymore.”

Sherlock turned back to face him, a single brow curling up toward his hair. “That’s a bold statement,” he challenged, and John shrugged.

“Yeah, well, when you’ve seen a guy in a green morph suit ride by on a unicycle,” he said, volume climbing to be heard over Sherlock’s bursting laugh, “you can pretty much keep a straight face through anything.”

Sherlock straightened up, gasping for breath as he recovered from his bout of mirth. “You might have me there,” he chuckled, and John joined in, silence slowly falling between them as the short distance strained with growing awkwardness.

“Well,” John muttered, clearing his throat as he shuffled his feet, “I suppose I should...” He trailed away, scraping his foot a half-stride back as he pointed a thumb over his shoulder, out of reasonable excuses to prolong the conversation, and Sherlock nodded, his eyes a little dimmer when he looked back up from his shoes.

“Right,” he replied, the breathy syllable misting out over his lips. “Yes, it-it is getting rather late.”

“Yeah,” John agreed, but made no move to draw further away, a swallow bobbing down his throat as he gazed down the row of streetlights. “Can’t avoid revising forever.”

Sherlock smiled, shoulders rolling with a shrug. “No,” he murmured, “I suppose not.”

Still, no one moved apart from their eyes darting around to avoid meeting one another, John just about to break and put an end to the shortest acquaintance and longest farewell of his life when Sherlock’s voice cut off the thought.

“But,” he somewhat blurted, like the syllable had been held behind his lips, pressure building, “if-if you could avoid it…a little longer…” He faded away, expression twitching in a small frown of hesitation, and John smiled, shifting out of his retreating stance and lifting an inquiring brow to encourage him on. Sherlock straightened up, confident demeanor returning as a smile tugged lightly at the corner of his mouth. “I should probably do something in recompense for intruding on your evening,” he remarked, and John laughed, equal parts perplexed and charmed by the sudden shift to Shakespeare-in-the-street.

“You don’t have to,” John assured, shaking his head, but Sherlock waved a hand, lifting his arm out toward the street to hail a cab he somehow knew had just rounded the corner behind him.

“No, but I do insist,” he replied, the glow of a streetlamp captured in his eyes as he smirked, walking toward the slowing taxi. “My grandmother would roll over in her grave if I didn’t at least offer coffee or something.”

“Well, I’d hate to be the cause of that,” John agreed, and Sherlock grinned, yanking the door open and holding it for John to climb in first across the seat.

He dropped in himself a moment later, the door closing with a sharp snap as he leaned forward, imparting an unintelligible address to the cabbie, but the man seemed to understand him well enough, and nodded, tires sweeping away from the curb with a jolt.

It was quiet for a time, Sherlock pulling out his mobile to frown at the screen in between brisk taps and swipes of his fingers, and John busied himself with twisting at a loose thread inside his jacket pocket, twirling it taut around his finger before snapping it free.

“First or second year?”

John turned, finding Sherlock watching him, head tilted and phone stowed. “Sorry?”

“The medicine program,” he clarified, nodding at the Barts crest stitched in white on John’s rugby jacket. “Are you in your first or second year?”

“Oh,” John murmured, looking down as his fingers instinctively grazed across the embroidery, “um, second. But how did you know it was medicine?” He lifted his face, frowning across at the man. “Barts does dentistry too.”

Sherlock chuckled, leaning closer to peer out around the front seats, a hint of cigarette smoke wafting across the shrunken space between them. “You’re hardly the dentist type,” he asserted, and John frowned, watching stripes of light roll over the canvas of the man’s face as they drove.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he snipped, and Sherlock quirked a brow, peering at him out of the corner of his eye.

“Nothing,” he answered with a shrug. “You just don’t seem like someone who would be drawn to that vocation.”

John blinked, a perplexed crease gradually burrowing into his forehead. “You’ve known me less than an hour,” he reminded, but Sherlock was untroubled.

“Technically twenty minutes, if you’re going from first sight,” he said, his posture turning stiff for a moment as he turned his head to clear his throat, “but that’s still more than enough time.”

“To know I’m not a dentist?” John quipped, and Sherlock chuckled, shaking his head.

“No. Well, yes,” he added, shrugging a shoulder, and then turned his face up to John, an easy smile beneath bright eyes, “but not only that.”

John quirked a brow. “Really?” he challenged, and Sherlock rose to it with a nod. “Well, go on, then,” he urged, folding his arms and shifting his posture to more directly face the man. “Tell me I’m a Libra, or whatever it is you do.”

“Cancer,” Sherlock said, sharp and sure, barreling on as John’s eyes blew wide, “but those things are parlor tricks, the playground of carnival psychics peddling hope to the ignorant masses; I deal in science, in observation, deductive reasoning. For instance,” he clipped, fixing John with a look he couldn’t so much as blink away from, “you’re an eldest child with at least one younger sibling; you moved to London for university, and not from nearby, so you don’t know many people outside of rugby and classes; you hate taking the underground, _and_ ,” he capped off with a flourish, “you’re left-handed.”

John’s mouth had fallen open long ago, tongue hanging thick and useless in his mouth, but he only just realized his eyes had gone dry, and blinked several times in quick succession, dropping his gaze to his knees as the stinging subsided. When he next looked up, Sherlock had turned away, his face impassive in the reflection on the window glass, but John could see his fingers twisting in his lap, betraying the trepidation. “That was,” he began, Sherlock’s shoulders squaring as his eyes peered out of their corners, “amazing.”

At first, there was no reaction, Sherlock holding the sidelong gaze as he blinked, and then his forehead furrowed, grey eyes brightening to flint as they scanned John’s face. “Really?” he muttered, and John huffed a laugh, shaking his head in disbelief at the man’s uncertainty.

“Of course it was!” he urged, and Sherlock’s eyes widened, though a crease of suspicion lingered between his brows. “It was extraordinary, it-it was…” John faded away, growing self-conscious under the man’s persistent stare. “What?” he murmured, and Sherlock seemed to startle himself out of a trance, blinking rapidly as he rattled his head.

“Nothing,” he muttered, clearing his throat into a fist, “that’s just- That’s not what people normally say.”

John frowned. “What do people normally say?”

“Piss off,” Sherlock replied, turning to him with a lopsided smirk, and John blinked at him a moment before starting to chuckle, the laughter building as Sherlock joined in.

“Well?” John prompted as the merriment died down, and Sherlock frowned, confused. “How did you know all that?” he elaborated, waving a hand, as if the words still hovered in the air overhead. “Me moving to London, the younger sibling. My _star sign_.”

“I didn’t _know_ , I saw,” Sherlock muttered, carrying on with a tip of his head. “Well, the star sign one I suppose I knew; Lestrade was holding your forms faceup,” he explained, flipping his hand in demonstration, and John nodded, recalling. “As for the others,” Sherlock continued, turning his head, though he did not meet John’s eyes, his gaze flittering around the cab interior as he spoke, “the eldest child bit was obvious; it was far too easy to convince you to come down to Scotland Yard in the middle of the night-”

“10:00.”

“10:12, and immaterial,” Sherlock rebutted, and John turned quickly to the window, biting his bottom lip to keep from snorting. “That’s clearly not the first late night call from jail you’ve received, and the request would’ve been met with bitterness had the previous calls not come from someone for whom you have affection or feel some duty of care, thus the younger sibling, evidently one with a propensity for law-breaking.”

John’s mouth twisted with a smile he tried but couldn’t help, shaking his head as he looked aimlessly out the front windshield. “Perhaps,” he chirped, smirking back at Sherlock’s withering look, “or maybe you just sounded extra pitiful.”

“Maybe I was doing that on purpose.”

“Maybe I could tell.”

“Maybe you could,” Sherlock rejoined, finally meeting John’s gaze, and John held it, the two of them silently staring just long enough to feel important before dropping their eyes with twin smiles. “The moving here for uni part was mostly common sense,” he continued, tone back to business. “If you’d lived anywhere nearby, you’d likely have friends in the city, and, if after over a year at Barts, you’re still at home studying on a Saturday night”—he tossed an apologetic smile—“it stands to reason you don’t make much time for socializing beyond rugby and your classes.”

John bit the inside of his cheek, nodding begrudgingly. “And?” he invited, the corners of Sherlock’s mouth twitching as he continued, a manic sort of excitement building in his racing words.

“Outside Scotland Yard, you started walking east,” he said, nodding his head to the right, “when the underground station is southwest. There is, however, a main street in that direction, where you’d be more likely to find a cab. It’s also the direction you would’ve gone if you were intending to walk,” he added with a dismissive flick of his hand, “but that seems unlikely given the late hour and the length of time it would take.”

John pressed his lips tight together, trying to hold a blank expression. “Maybe I was just going the wrong way,” he argued. “Like you said, I haven’t lived in London very long.”

“No,” Sherlock said with a decisive shake of his head, “you’ve made a point to learn the basics of the city—enough to not get lost, at any rate.”

“How do ya figure that?”

“You knew it would take 30 minutes to get from your flat to Scotland Yard,” he replied, tipping a coy smirk John’s direction, and John turned away to the window before his face couldn’t help but return it.

“27,” he muttered, and Sherlock laughed a moment before a cough caught the sound, as if his throat were unaccustomed to producing it.

He then turned toward the window, his spine snapping straight as they rounded a corner, and John was forcibly reminded of his childhood dog, perked ears the only thing needed to complete the scene. “Here will be fine,” he, well, barked, and the cabbie swerved toward the curb, stopping with a jolt that locked John’s seatbelt in place.

When he could move again, he leaned forward, squinting through the glass at the street beyond. “Um, Sherlock?” he questioned, twisting to scan out the back windshield as well, but there remained only towering walls of concrete and glass, not a café or restaurant in sight. “Where-”

“Come on,” Sherlock interrupted, passing a few crumpled notes through the sliding plexiglass window. “We’ve only got half an hour, assuming he’s not speeding too exorbitantly.”

“What?” John asked, scrambling across the leather seats to follow as the man leapt out into the night. “What are you talking about? And where are we?”

“At the law offices of Strattan and Foley,” Sherlock replied, forcing John to jog a few strides as he charged toward a narrow gap between two of the buildings. “They rent the fifth floor of this building,” he added, indicating the structure on their right, and John blinked up at the wall of dark windows reflecting streetlights in watery streaks.

“Okay,” he drawled, raising a brow at the boy’s back, “and that matters to me because...?”

“Because Strattan and Foley employs one Nicholas Curtis,” Sherlock answered—inasmuch as he formed words in reply, at least—“whose wife recently suffered a fatal accident in the bath of their penthouse apartment. According to Mr. Curtis’s statement, he and his wife were planning to meet some mutual friends for dinner—him coming straight from work, while she was to arrive separately from their home.” He stopped at the corner of the building, John bracing himself on the wall as he struggled not to topple into his back, and peered his head around the bend, scanning once the opposite direction before forging ahead. “The police report indicates that Mrs. Curtis was found dead at approximately 6pm that evening, seemingly the victim of accidental electrocution, her hair dryer floating in the water after apparently falling off the counter.”

“And you don’t think it was an accident,” John surmised, and Sherlock stopped short again, turning around with a wrinkled expression of puzzled surprise. “What?” John shrugged. “You hit the trifecta of skeptical adverbs.”

Sherlock blinked, frowning a moment before his lips twitched in an aborted smile that looked like it might’ve become fond. “As a matter of fact,” he said, coat spiraling around him as he spun forward once more, “I don’t.”

“Why not?” John asked, quickening his stride to come alongside the man as Sherlock shook a pair of gloves from his coat pocket.

“Because,” he began, wriggling his right hand into the leather, “the bathroom window was open, and the hair dryer in question was practically an antique, meaning there was no ground fault circuit interrupter built into the cord.”

“So?” John challenged, ignoring Sherlock’s stabbing glance. “My mum’s had the same radio longer than I’ve been alive, and she could’ve opened the window to let some of the steam out.”

“Oh, I’m certain that is why she opened the window,” Sherlock agreed, surprising John enough that he didn’t think to question being handed the man’s other glove, “but I don’t think steam was the only thing going through it.”

John frowned up at the side of Sherlock’s face, the moonlight setting his pale skin in stark relief against the backdrop of the night. “Wait, are you- You’re saying you think someone snuck into her window to drop a hair dryer into her bath?”

“Mr. Curtis said his wife lost her newer hair dryer at a hotel they were staying at a week before her death,” the man rattled on, glancing up the side of the building before nudging John closer to the wall, “but what if it wasn’t lost; what if he stole it, knowing she would have to resort to using her much older model? According to their mutual friends, this dinner had been planned for _months_ , and he would know her routines, know she’d likely take a bath before getting ready for the evening. And his father is a contractor; he helped them remodel the kitchen last year. Mr. Curtis could have easily picked up enough to know how to tamper with the outlet.”

“But you said he was at work,” John recalled, hoping nothing important had been deleted from his brain to make room for this lunacy. “And, even if he wasn’t, they live in the _penthouse_. How’s he supposed to be in two places at once _and_ fly?”

“Would just one of those have been believable to you?”

“Sherlock,” John snapped, something about Sherlock Holmes inspiring both rapid familiarity and frustration, and the man smiled as if he knew just what it was.

“He was at work,” he said, steps slowing as he rummaged through the inside pocket of his coat, “and he can’t fly, but what you’ve deemed an indicator of the impossibility of murder is precisely how it was committed.”

John watched him, expectant, but Sherlock did not continue, pulling free a small plastic card as they stopped in front of a door John only now noticed, the metal painted grey to match the concrete. “You want me to guess?” he deadpanned, and Sherlock chuckled, shaking his head.

“No, we haven’t the time,” he mocked, ignoring John’s glare as he bent down to examine the lock—a combination of a numerical keypad and card reader. “I’ve uncovered evidence suggesting Mr. Curtis was having an affair with a woman named Elaine Blake, who, on top of her receptionist duties at this office, is also an avid rock climber.” He leaned back, panting twice on the strip of the card in his hand before polishing it on his sleeve. “So, you see, it’s quite obvious the only accident that befell Mrs. Curtis was marrying an adulterous murderer. I’d put that on, if I were you,” he added, nodding down at the glove in John’s hand as he swiped the card, beeping out a five-digit code on the keypad with his own gloved hand. “Lestrade looks the other way on most things, but a fingerprint match might be pushing even his tenuous limits.”

“A fingerprint!? Sherlock, what the _hell_ are you-”

The door let out a long droning beep, a light on the keypad turning green, and Sherlock tugged it open by the handle, sliding the card back into his pocket. “Hurry up,” he clipped, flinging the door out for John to catch. “We’re on something of a schedule.”

“Sherlock!” John hissed at the man’s back before it vanished into the darkness, illuminated in silhouette a moment later when he clicked on a torch. “What the _hell_ are we doing here!?”

“Have you not been paying attention?” Sherlock replied, his voice drifting away as he moved further into the building, the beam of his light reflecting off the cinderblock walls of a narrow corridor. “We’re solving a murder.”

John gaped at the man’s back, jaw working around phantom protests. “I- I am _not_ \- Sherlock!” he cried, but the call went unheeded, Sherlock disappearing through a door near the end of the hallway without so much as a backward glance.

A frustrated snarl hissed through John’s teeth, head whipping on his neck as he glanced between the safety of the lamp-lit street and the black corridor. “Bollocks!” he spat, and took off down the hall, wrestling the glove onto his hand as he raced the closing sliver of moonlight to the door. Yanking it open, he was confronted with what must have been the entrance hall of the building, an airy room with tiled floors and high ceilings, yellowed light from the streetlamps outside striping across the empty reception desk as it pushed through the blinds. “Sherlock?” he breathed, stepping on the balls of his feet as he crept into the room, searching for the torch beam. “ _Sherlock_?”

“Why are you whispering?”

A strangled yelp burst from John’s throat, and he spun on the spot to find Sherlock standing a scant four feet behind him, arms crossed and eyebrow raised as he leaned against one of the low leather armchairs comprising the waiting area.

“There’s no one else here,” he said, waving a hand at the empty room for emphasis, and John narrowed his eyes as much as he could afford in the dim light.

“Don’t do that,” he muttered, and Sherlock chuckled, pushing up from the furniture and starting across the room.

“Do what?” he asked, tossing a canary-feathered smirk over his shoulder, and then ignited the torch again, waving the beam over a stairwell entrance on the opposite wall. “Hope you’ve been keeping up with your rugby conditioning,” he quipped, John answering his smile with a flat expression.

“Why, you need a piggyback ride?” he spat back, Sherlock’s laugh bouncing around the room as he pulled open the stairwell door.

“Well, so long as you’re offering...” he mused, but John was already through the door, leaving Sherlock holding it for no one as he brushed past and started quickly up the stairs.

He heard Sherlock chuckle as he rounded the first landing, a clang of metal and shuffling footsteps following thereafter.

“If you’re intending this to be a race”—Sherlock’s deep voice echoed up the stairwell, surrounding him as he passed the first floor—“you should know you’re the only one running it.”

John’s feet faltered over the painted concrete steps, his jaw clenching, and then he gusted out a sigh, beginning again at a slower pace. “You know, you still haven’t explained it,” he said as Sherlock came into view at the bottom of the flight. “How you know it’s a murder.”

“Of course I have,” the man huffed, and John rolled his eyes, pausing on the landing for Sherlock to catch up.

“Obviously not, or I wouldn't be asking, would I?”

“Well, that’s not necessarily-” he started, but tapered off as he caught sight of John’s stony expression, ducking his face with a shy smile. “It is my opinion—and, as such, likely to be true—that Elaine Blake used her skill as a rock climber to scale down from the roof of the building to the Curtis’ bathroom window, where she pushed Mrs. Curtis’s hair dryer into her bath water, most likely with the use of some form of long retractable rod.”

John stopped, Sherlock carrying on a few more steps before noticing his absence and turning back, brow furrowed in confusion. “ _What?_ ” John blurted, incredulous, and Sherlock folded his arms, eyes narrowing down at him. “You-You think- But that’s _insane_!”

“And that reaction is precisely why they’re getting away with it,” Sherlock snipped, twisting away with a sweep of his coat as he started again up the stairs. “It took me two days to convince Lestrade to examine the rooftop for evidence, and, by then, the rope marks had almost completely washed away—enough for Lestrade to dismiss them as ordinary wear, at least.”

“Rope marks?” John queried, speeding up to meet the boy’s heels.

Sherlock nodded, his voice still crisp and clear as they climbed passed the third floor. “On the stone directly above the Curtis’ bathroom window. It was clear something had rubbed against the rock, leaving a line where it had removed the top layer of dirt. There were no nylon fibers left though,” he added with a grumble, “so Lestrade wrote it off. Kids ‘mucking about’ on the roof.” He curled his fingers around the inspector’s words, garnishing the statement with a scoff. “It’s a highrise in _Fulham_! The closest anyone gets to mucking about is drinking red wine with fish.”

John smiled down at his trainers as they marched through the fourth floor, looking up at the odd man in front of him with renewed curiosity. “You really think that’s how it happened?” he asked, and Sherlock hummed in confirmation as they turned onto the final landing, his footsteps quickening against the concrete. John matched his pace, considering a moment before vaulting to the front, catching the handle of the door ahead of Sherlock’s reaching fingers. “So,” he said, pulling the door open and smiling at Sherlock’s furrowed brow, “what are we looking for?”

Sherlock blinked, head tilting as he puzzled over John’s face, and then turned away, a vain attempt to hide a smile as he walked ahead onto the fifth floor. “The mobile he used to communicate with his mistress,” he explained, pointing the torch down a narrow aisle between the rows of cubicles. “The number on the account he shared with his wife showed nothing unusual, but a woman at a Vodafone near his building said he’s been coming in to top up a phone for months.”

“How’d you find that out?” John asked, and Sherlock shrugged, turning right toward the private offices that lined the exterior of the building.

“It was the only logical conclusion, so I brought a picture of him ‘round to every mobile phone dealer within five miles of his home and office.”

John spluttered in disbelief, catching flies as he stared at the back of the man’s head, the dark curls haloed by the torchlight as it bounced off the office windows. “You’re shitting me,” he said flatly, but Sherlock only chuckled, shaking his head.

“No, but it wasn’t quite as grueling as it sounds.” He stopped in front of an office one shy of the corner, the name ‘Nick Curtis’ glinting at them from the silver nameplate slotted into a holder on the dark wood door. “It was only the fifth place I checked,” he added with a shrug, kneeling down in front of the doorknob as John instinctively took the torch from his hand.

“And you think he’s keeping it here?” John presumed, not the slightest bit surprised as Sherlock pulled a thin metal pin from a hidden compartment in the lining of his wallet.

“Stands to reason,” Sherlock affirmed, nodding his head at the lock, and John obliged, lifting the torch beam to illuminate his work. “It wasn’t at his flat, so-”

“Wait, you broke into his flat?!” John interjected, light drooping as his arm shifted in surprise, and Sherlock dropped his hands from the door, turning around with a frustrated huff.

“Of course I broke into his flat,” he muttered, grabbing John’s wrist and lifting it back into place. “How do you think I ended up in jail?”

“You said someone stole your wallet,” John recounted, and Sherlock chuckled, leaning tight to the doorknob as he rattled the pin in the lock.

“Technically, I planted it on him,” he explained, reaching up to steady the doorknob with his free hand. “Bumped into him in Tesco earlier and dropped it in his briefcase. I needed an excuse for when they caught me breaking in.”

John frowned down at the ground, trying to force the pieces together, but it all still felt like square pegs and round holes. “So…you knew they would catch you?” he questioned, and Sherlock snorted, yanking the pin from the lock as he stood up, swinging the door open in front of him.

“Knew?” he scoffed, taking the torch from John’s hand as he led the way into the office. “I called it in. Mr. Curtis was making plans to flee the country,” he elaborated, seeming to take pity on John’s perplexed expression. “He would be long gone by the time the police went through legal avenues to obtain any concrete evidence, but, if he receives a call that someone has broken into his house, he’s bound to come back to ensure they haven’t found anything of import—namely, the mobile.” He scanned the torch over the large desk in the center of the room, pushing aside the chair and opening drawers in turn. “My original intent was to find the mobile and place it somewhere not even Lestrade could miss so he’d take it in when he came to arrest me,” he rattled off as casually as one speculating the likelihood of rain, “but, obviously, it wasn’t there. Which was why I couldn’t wait on bail,” he added, glancing up at John as he roughly removed one of the drawer organizers, sending bars of staples cascading down to splinter across the floor. “He’s been staying at his parent’s house since the murder, and would have left as soon as he received the call, so there wasn’t any time to waste if I wanted to beat him here.”

John’s eyes widened, the full picture finally coming into focus, and he didn’t like the view. “You-You mean- He’s coming _here_?” he blurted, pointing down at the hardwood for clarity, and Sherlock paused, lifting his face and a brow.

“Yes,” he said, as if John were somehow the one being absurd. “To get the mobile phone. Honestly, did I slip into French at some point, or-”

“So, you’re saying,” John interjected, stepping to the opposite side of the desk, hands slicing through the air as he spoke, “that we just broke into the office of a murderer who could walk through that door any second?”

“Well,” Sherlock murmured, shrugging a shoulder, “it will probably be another ten minutes or so, but-”

“Sherlock!” John trumpeted as he twisted toward the door, but they were, for the moment, safe from any hooded figures wielding blood-spattered axes. “We have to get out of here!”

“We will,” the man replied, wrenching open another drawer, “as soon as I find his mobile.” He lifted out a stack of folders, shuffling through the multicolored layers before tossing the lot over his shoulder with a cavalier flick of his wrist, and John rushed forward with a cry that sounded more like a chain-smoking cat than a person.

“What are you doing!?” he started to shout, dropping the decibels to a frantic hiss as he glanced yet again at the door. “He’s gonna know we were in here!”

“Correction: He’s going to know _someone_ was in here. He doesn’t even know who _I_ am, let alone you,” Sherlock sniffed, and John opened his mouth, retort at the ready before he reconsidered the timing. “He’ll come in, find his office vandalized, the mobile gone”—he moved to a filing cabinet on the wall, rolling out the bottom drawer and shoving folders aside to pat along the bottom—“and know he’s been discovered, know he’s out of time. All his planning will be useless, and he’ll panic, he’ll be desperate, and desperate people make mistakes.”

“Yeah, like killing the two people they find _breaking into their office_!”

“Then help me!” Sherlock shouted, slamming the bottom drawer closed and rattling open the next. “Check the bookcase or something! Or leave.”

John’s eyes snapped up, fixed on the stiff set of the man’s shoulders as he ripped through the files, his face turned into the shadows.

“If you want,” Sherlock added in a mutter that had a lot of heart, but fell far short of being sharp, and John bit his lip, an obligatory display of indecision so he could pretend he wasn’t completely mental.

With an equally half-hearted huff, he moved to the bookcases lining the adjacent wall, shifting picture frames and plaques with his gloved left hand, but looked back at the sound of a low chuckle.

“Need any bubble wrap?” Sherlock drawled through a smirk, and John quirked a brow, holding the man’s gaze as he slowly slid a picture frame off the shelf.

“Nope,” he replied, lips popping the consonant, and Sherlock smiled, shaking his head at the debris at John’s feet before returning to his errand. John looked back to the shelves, pushing up onto his toes as he pat across the top, but came away with only dust, clapping his hands together in front of him before wiping the rest on his jeans. He swatted a few more of the fragile display items onto the floor before moving on to the section stuffed with books, starting at the top and wriggling them out one-by-one. Leafing through each one just enough to ensure there was no hidden storage, he then dropped them on the floor, a mound of literature building at his feet, and then his eye caught on a volume shelved at the top of the next column, familiar silver script swirling over dark blue binding.

Releasing his current book to its fellows with a heavy _thump_ , he stepped tight to the shelf, bracing himself on a middle rung as he stretched up to hook his fingers on a corner of the spine, yanking a few times before the book wriggled out enough to get his hand around, and then pulled it loose, turning the cover over in his hands as he settled back onto his heels. The book was different than the others in the office—a cloth-covered Austen amongst leather-bound law—and John traced a finger over the remembered cover before thumbing down the silver-gilded pages, grinning as his stroke caught on its target.

“Sherlock,” he called, waggling the book in the air as the man turned, abandoning his assault on the top drawer to approach with a raised brow.

“I hardly think this is the time to brush up on your classic literature,” he scathed, and John rolled his eyes, flipping the book open to the storage compartment hidden in the latter half of the pages.

He didn’t need to look down to know the mobile was inside, watching Sherlock’s eyes widen in surprise much more entertaining, and his lips curled in a self-satisfied smile as the grey gaze shot back up to meet him. “My sister got one of these when she left for uni,” he said, holding the book steady as Sherlock plucked the phone from the carved space. “She said she was worried about someone stealing her jewelry, but I suspect slightly less legal motivations.”

“What?” Sherlock murmured, typing in the PIN code with the tips of his gloved fingers, and John smiled, shaking his head at the man’s bowed face.

“Nothing,” he replied, snapping the half-book shut as he added it to the pile. “How’d you figure out the PIN?”

“Mistress’s birth year,” Sherlock answered, brow crinkling as he lifted the phone to his face, eyes darting side-to-side over the messages he scrolled through his thumb. A long message rolled across the screen, inverted from John’s point of view, and Sherlock stopped, eyes widening as a crazed grin spread across his face. “This is it!” he exclaimed, pulling the screen so close, his eyes nearly crossed as he read it. “This is everything we need!”

John raised a brow, mouth opening to question the plural, but a sound from outside the office drew his attention, and he spun just in time to see a light spark to life some distance around the corner, the flickering fluorescents casting a dim green glow on the opposite side of the floor. “Sherlock!” he hissed, heart pounding as it leapt into his throat, but the warning fell on deaf ears as the man continued to self-congratulate.

“Oh, there’s no way he can talk himself out of this one! It’s all here, the whole plan, right down to the length of rope needed to make the climb.”

“ _Sherlock!_ ”

“I can’t _wait_ to see the look on his face when Lestrade- MMPH!”

John clamped a hand over the man’s mouth, lifting a finger to his lips as Sherlock’s eyes flashed with indignant fury, and then nodded out to the hall, Sherlock going still as the office lights dusted over his face.

Stepping out of John’s grip, he motioned for the door, pocketing the mobile as they crept out of the office, walking as fast as the balls of their feet would allow.

A soft _click_ came from just around the corner, the lights over their heads blaring to life a moment later, and they turned to one another, a synchronized second of mutual panic before simultaneously diving under the desk of the closest cubicle, John biting his lip to keep from crying out as Sherlock’s jagged elbow caught him in the side. They settled into position just before the harried footsteps came close enough to be audible, their bodies pressed together from shoulder to ankle as they curled into the shadow of the desk, holding their breath while the strides passed behind them.

A moment later, a muffled curse reached their ears as Mr. Curtis no doubt saw the state of his office, and John took the moment to fidget, confident the murderer was too far away to hear him shift against the carpet.

“Shhh!” Sherlock hissed all the same, and John glared at him, resettling his weight in hopes of obtaining some relief from the pointed hip spearing his thigh.

“You shh!” he snarled back, kicking at the side of Sherlock’s foot. “Your bloody hip is stabbing me!”

“Well, maybe if you stopped wriggling around so-”

The office door creaked behind them, and John instinctively reached across to cover Sherlock’s mouth, the man freezing in apparent shock a moment before John felt a sharp pinch of teeth on the skin of his index finger and yanked his hand away, shaking it in the limited space between them.

“You _bit_ me!” he more mouthed than said, and Sherlock sneered, tongue protruding from behind his teeth in a way that made John want to modernize some primary school playground insults, but a muttering voice behind them prompted him to freeze.

“Shit! Shit, shit, fucking- They found it. … The phone, the phone, they found the phone! … The fuck does it matter who; it’s gone! … HOW THE HELL WOULD I KNOW HOW THEY- … I don’t know. The cleaning staff comes in in the afternoon, so it must’ve been after that. … Well, nobody’s telling me to come out with my hands up, so- … I KNOW THIS ISN’T FUNNY, ELAINE, I’M NOT A FUCKING- … You’re right, you’re right, I’m sorry, I’m just- … Yeah. ... Yeah, okay, let me just- You’ve got the van packed, right?”

Sherlock stiffened beside him, his breaths falling silent.

“Okay. Okay, dump your phone and head to the location. … SHH, don’t fucking say anything else; they might be listening! … Alright, I’ll meet you there. … No, I’ll find my own way. … I love you, too.” There was a rustle of clothing, a heavy sigh, and then footsteps backing away from them, Sherlock hissing out a muted curse as the sound grew faint.

“There’s no way we’ll catch him now!”

“Why not?” John whispered back as the lights above them flicked off, eyes blinking rapidly as he adjusted to the sudden darkness.

“Because I don’t know where they’re _going_!” Sherlock snarled, head twisting back in the direction Mr. Curtis had gone. “Elaine’s family owns an air charter company; they have locations in China, Ukraine, at least three other non-extradition countries, and they could be taking off from just about anywhere, depending on the size of the plane.”

“So, what are you gonna do?”

“I don’t know!” Sherlock’s eyes skittered over the carpet in front of his feet, brow knitting in frantic concentration. “There’s no time to get the phone to Lestrade now. Once he leaves, he’ll be in the wind.”

John bit his lip, scanning over the office as he thought, and then his eyes caught on a small green sphere to the left of the computer monitor, and he lunged out from under the desk, snatching it in his fist as he wound his arm back. “Then we’ll just have to keep him here,” he muttered to a dumbstruck Sherlock, who moved a second too late, latching onto John’s arm just as the stress ball left his fingers, rocketing across the room after Mr. Curtis.

“What the _hell_ are you-”

There was a yelp from around the corner as the ball dropped into a cubicle against the opposite wall, bouncing around the space with a series of dull _thuds_ before the floor went silent once more. “Hello?” Mr. Curtis said, his voice creeping closer. “Who’s there?”

John turned to Sherlock, who was gaping up at him with an expression of awestruck fury he doubted he would ever see another face wear. “Call Lestrade,” he whispered, bending down to the man as the lights reignited overhead. “Pretend to be a custodian or something, tell him there’s been a break-in.”

“There has, and it’s _us_!”

“We’ll be gone by the time he gets here.”

“John!”

“Who’s there!?”

John knelt to the floor as Mr. Curtis’s voice rang out again, closer this time. “Wait till we’re gone, then make the call,” he murmured, stripping off his name-emblazoned jacket and shoving it under the desk. “Leave the phone in his office; Lestrade will have to find it there,” he added, but Sherlock gripped him tightly by the forearm before he could stand.

“Are you in _sane_!” he hissed, looking at John like he already had the answer. “He wouldn’t have come here unarmed! What if he catches you?”

“He won’t,” John assured as the man’s footsteps rounded the corner, the meters closing between them. “I’ve been keeping up with my conditioning,” he added, and, with a wink, he was gone, bolting out of Sherlock’s grip before the man could do anything but drop his jaw.

“HEY!”

Heavy footsteps started after him, but John had a head start, weaving between the cubicles as he raced for the closest stairwell, leaving Sherlock to go back the way they’d come.

“STOP!” Mr. Curtis bellowed just as John wrenched open the door, and the air trembled with a thunderous _bang_ , plaster dust exploding a few feet to his left as he vaulted down the first flight.

So. That’s what a gunshot sounded like.

He braced his hands on the rails on either side, hurling himself down the second flight of stairs as the door clattered open overhead.

“STOP!” his pursuer yelled again, his footsteps heavy and muddled on the concrete steps, and John’s panic eased somewhat at the sound, confident he could easily outstrip the man’s pace. “GIVE ME THAT PHONE!”

Two more shots rang out, and John ducked, lifting his arms up to his head as he ran, but the bullets flew wild, apparently fired blindly into the stairwell, pinging against the railings and walls of the stories below.

When he reached the third floor, John burst out of the stairwell, his distraction not going to be of much help if they got to the bottom before Sherlock, but the layout of the floor was much sparser than he’d expected, and his heart thundered in his chest as he searched for a place to hide. All of his options equally terrible, John doubled back, crouching down in the shadow of a printer near the stairwell door, shuffling a stack of boxes to block himself from view just as Mr. Curtis broke out onto the floor.

The man was breathing in stereo, John close enough to see the spit shooting from his mouth as he panted through his teeth, but his attention was quickly drawn down to the gun in his hand, the barrel of the heavy pistol glinting as it caught the lamplight streaking through the windows. “Where are you!?” Mr. Curtis snarled, pointing the gun around the room as he started forward, and John held his breath, watching his ankles as they passed. “I don’t wanna hurt you,” he continued, a sentiment somewhat at odds with the finger he held on the trigger, “I just want the phone.” He continued to stalk farther into the room, turning the gun this way and that as he peered under tables and desks, and John shifted in his hiding place, peering between the boxes to get a look at the man he felt he already knew.

Nick Curtis was shorter than John had expected, though his mane of brown hair added at least at inch. He looked like he might have been in good shape once, but the stocky limbs now appeared more fat than muscle, and there was sweat beading down his temples, framing his wide-set eyes as they darted around the room. “I know you’re in here!” he called out again, licking his lips nervously as a swallow bobbed down his throat. “You can’t hide forever!”

John made a mental note to groan at the cliché later, but it was wiped clean as he saw the man’s eyes land on a light switch on the wall. His hiding spot unlikely to hold up to the scrutiny of fluorescents, John rose to his feet, staying as low as possible as he made to move around the boxes, but there wasn’t enough room to slip silently by, and, as Mr. Curtis turned his back, reaching for the switch, John sucked in a breath and made a break for it.

In the next three seconds, three things happened.

The lights blazed on overhead, disorienting him slightly as he rushed for the door, guided by the glimmer of the metal handle. A shout came from behind him, something short, something John wasn’t paying much attention to, because, in the next blink of his eyes, two shots exploded, one missing his head by inches as it splintered the door frame beside him.

Once, when John was a child, he and his sister had been mucking about with a rounders set in the garden. She had sent the ball sailing over the fence, landing amongst the neighbor’s daffodils, and, her being the youngest, John had been volunteered to retrieve it. What neither of them had known was that the ill-tempered Boerboel—named Persimmon, of all things—was not taking her usual afternoon nap, and came bounding around the corner the second John curled his fingers around the wooden ball, sending him streaking toward the fence as his sister screamed a running commentary of how fast the dog was gaining on him.

He ran even faster now, leaping the first flight of steps, losing his footing on the landing and crashing into the wall, but he immediately pushed off, gripping the railings and catapulting himself down to the second floor as the door opened overhead, his teeth rattling as another shot echoed around the stairwell.

“GET BACK HERE!” the man cried, firing wildly after him, John worried more about ricochets than anything as one of the bullets pinged off the railing a few feet in front of him. “GIVE ME THAT PHONE!”

There was only so much ducking and weaving one could do while racing a madman down a stairwell, but John did his best to stay against the wall, hoping to stay out of the line of sight and fire, and made it to the ground floor unscathed, diving out the door and into an unfamiliar section of the lobby. He scanned frantically around, catching sight of the waiting area Sherlock had been lurking in across the room, and rushed toward it just as the muffled wail of a siren came creeping through the walls, flashes of red and blue light strobing through the front windows.

“COME BACK HERE, YOU LITTLE-” The rest of Mr. Curtis’s shout was drowned out by another volley of gunfire, John completely exposed as he bolted for the door, but Mr. Curtis was about as good at aiming as he was getting away with murder, and John yanked on the handle just as a deafening _crash_ of glass sounded behind him, followed by a cacophony of shouting that faded as he raced down the corridor toward the back door.

“DROP YOUR WEAPON!”

“There was an intruder! He went-”

“DROP THE WEAPON! GET ON THE GROUND!”

“You don’t understand!”

“ON THE GROUND!”

The night air bit at his lungs as he sprinted away from the building, running around the back of the neighboring office complex, trying to stay both far from and parallel to the road their cabbie had taken. Through the gaps in the buildings, John could see a cross street up ahead, and weaved his way toward it, halfway over a chain-link fence before the realization hit him like a ton of bricks, dragging him down as he landed heavily beside a graffiti-splattered dumpster.

_Sherlock_.

He scanned side-to-side along the alley, as if the man would materialize at the thought, but there was nothing there but grime and shadow. Looking ahead to the sanctuary of street, John heaved a resigned sigh, and then turned back to the fence, his fingers hooking into the chains as he braced his weight, preparing to climb.

“Forget something?”

“Jesus!” John spouted, wrenching his fingers free as he whipped around, steadying his back against the shifting metal wall.

Sherlock leaned against the dumpster, ankles crossed and arms folded, the corners of his mouth lifting higher as John’s eyes narrowed.

“Stop doing that!” he snapped, flapping a chiding finger at the man, who only chuckled, pushing up to standing now that his dramatic entrance was complete. “I’ve almost been killed enough tonight without you finishing the job!”

Sherlock dropped his eyes to the ground, shifting his weight between his feet. “Yes, I- I suppose- What you did...back there”—he flicked a hand back toward the law office, eyes darting everywhere but John—“that was, um…good.” He cleared his throat, lifting a hand to scratch at the back of his neck, and it was then John noticed something that pushed aside his impulse to gloat.

“Is that my jacket?” he asked, pointing at the crimson fabric stretched over Sherlock’s frame, the cuffs comically high above his wrists, though the fact that he was wearing it over his trench coat likely had more to do with that than the size.

“What?” Sherlock murmured, frowning, and then blinked, pulling his arm away to look at the borrowed sleeve. “Oh, er, yes,” he muttered, a hint of pink clear in his cheeks even in the weak glow of the distant streetlights. “I, um- Well, it seemed more practical than carrying it, what with outrunning an armed murderer and-”

John lunged the second he saw the lights in his peripheral vision, wrapping one hand around Sherlock’s mouth while the other pinned him to the wall, the momentum crashing John into his chest.

“Wud te fu-!”

“Shh!” John hissed, pressing firmly against Sherlock mumbling mouth, and the man looked as if he was considering biting him again when a jet of white light shot up the gap between the buildings ahead of them, illuminating the spot they had been standing seconds before.

It shifted up and down a moment, and then passed on, John finally exhaling as he looked up to find Sherlock frozen in his grip, pupils wide as they skittered over his face in the relative dark.

In spite of tackling Sherlock into the wall, John hadn’t realized how close they were, hadn’t noticed the lengths of their bodies pressed together from knee to chest, felt the thrum of Sherlock’s heart against his own caged in his ribs, or the heat of his mouth as he panted against John’s palm, chapped lips grazing his skin with every breath. He searched between Sherlock’s eyes, expecting confusion, or maybe even anger, but found only the same lost expression he sensed on his own face, and drew in a shuddering breath, the cool air clearing his head enough for him to communicate to his legs to step back, fingers only trembling a little as he pulled his hand from Sherlock’s mouth. He couldn’t quite manage speech yet, but, as he ought to have expected, Sherlock had that part covered, smiling softly as he ducked his head, watching John through his lashes.

“Are you planning on making a habit of that?” he asked, gesturing over his mouth, a much more difficult question in his tone, a doubt that John intended to put to rest right then and there.

“Depends,” he replied, and Sherlock’s face snapped up, a brief betrayal of panic before he caught sight of the smirk on John’s face, his own then creasing in a puzzled frown, “are you planning to keep talking too much?”

Sherlock blinked, a moment’s surprise, and then huffed a laugh that rang of relief, shaking his head down at his shoes. When he lifted it, he was smiling, a glint in his eyes as they held onto John’s. “Hungry?” he asked, and John’s shoulders fell limp as he wilted with a miserable groan.

“ _Starving_!” he whined, Sherlock’s grin broad as he chuckled. “Who knew being shot at was such a workout?”

“I imagine most people could take a wild guess. Come on,” he said, starting up the alley with a beckoning curl of his head. “I know a place not far from here. Owner owes me a favor.”

“Another murder from the Sherlock Holmes scrapbook?” John quipped, and Sherlock laughed, shaking his head.

“No. Kidnapping, actually.”

“Kidnapping?” John echoed, blinking up at the side of the man’s face. “How the hell’d you get involved with that?”

“That is...something of a long story,” Sherlock replied with a sidelong glance, but John only shrugged, curling the corners of his mouth.

“I’ve got time,” he answered, holding Sherlock’s gaze as it searched him, a small smile flirting with the edges of the man’s mouth before he launched full-tilt into the narrative, his hands rolling and slicing through the air as he talked, the cuffs of John’s jacket riding farther up his forearms all the while, but, if Sherlock didn’t notice he was still wearing it, John wasn’t going to bring it up.

He was plenty warm enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, by the way, I'm on Twitter now, @consultingdr221 if you wanna hit me up!


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